


runnin' from the ones behind me

by HearJessRoar



Series: seein' you with eyes wide open [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, and wears leather, in which marinette deals with the knowledge that her cute quiet crush, is also the catboy that likes to jump off roofs, like on purpose, she's had a very emotional three hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6026062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HearJessRoar/pseuds/HearJessRoar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I scratched Adrien under the chin like a real cat. All those times Chat was flirting with me, it was Adrien. When he got between me and Timebreaker, that was Adrien that started fading from existence. Tikki help me I think I'm spiraling.” she closed her eyes and pressed her hands over them, trying to unblur the line between her partner and her crush. </p><p>But the line was gone forever. Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir, and Marinette was <em>not handling it well.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	runnin' from the ones behind me

**Author's Note:**

> so this is actually an immediate followup to "you took my hand and ran beside me" but from marinette's pov bc why not
> 
> thanks so much to everyone who left comments on the first two in this series, they really mean a lot. even if i don't reply to all of them, know that i'm reading and rereading them and probably squealing while hiding my face in my sleeves. you're all so sweet.
> 
> if you wanna come talk to me, try my tumblr since i'm never away from it
> 
> aaaaaaand editing is for people who don't get antsy about posting right away ie not me so let me know if something doesn't look right

Marinette was going to throw up.

Or die.

Maybe both, she hadn't decided yet. 

Assuring her mother that _yes, she was fine, no, no tea,_ she let the trapdoor shut heavily.

Tikki popped out of her purse right as her knees hit the floor. “Marinette!”

Marinette ignored her, spread eagling out on the floor and pressing her cheek to the grain of the carpet, trying to ground herself.

Adrien was Chat Noir.

Adrien Agreste.

The boy of her dreams.

And he ran around Paris in a skintight leather catsuit. 

And told bad puns.

And annoyed the hell out of her.

And purred when she'd kissed him.

Marinette groaned, rolling onto her back to stare at the ceiling. She'd kissed _Adrien._

Granted, she hadn't known it was him at the time, and he didn't even remember it, but still.

 _She_ remembered. 

Months of knowing how soft Chat Noir's lips were, of how much she'd liked the way he’d purred when she had forced the kiss on him, because it was nice knowing that _someone_ in this world wanted to kiss her, of the intrusive thought that maybe his crush wasn't completely one sided like she'd been insisting, of feeling guilty for questioning her feelings for Adrien because of one little liplock with Chat-

But Chat _was_ Adrien. That's where it all had gone sideways.

Tikki floated in front of her, looking concerned. Marinette waved her away, letting her hand fall back to the floor with a thump.

“Adrien is Chat Noir.”

“Yes.”

“I scratched Adrien under the chin like a real cat. All those times Chat was flirting with me, it was Adrien. When he got between me and Timebreaker, that was Adrien that started fading from existence. Tikki help me I think I'm spiraling.” she closed her eyes and pressed her hands over them, trying to unblur the line between her partner and her crush. 

But the line was gone forever. Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir, and Marinette was _not handling it well._

Tikki pulled one of Marinette's hands from her face. “You're just going in circles here, Marinette.”

“I know,” she whined, pouting up at her kwami. “But how am I supposed to reconcile the fact that the handsome, quiet boy who sits in front of me also likes to flip barrel rolls off the rooftops of Paris, Tikki?” she sighed, stretching her arms above her head. Her fingers brushed the leg of her chaise, and she scratched at the lacquer absently. 

“It's just...it's a lot to process, is all.” she murmured. She let her head tip to the side, staring blankly at the wall behind her computer. 

At Adrien’s pictures.

She wondered if Chat had seen them. If Adrien had noticed when they broke into her room to get the dolls from Lady WiFi. Noticed that his bumbling classmate had magazine ads taped to her wall that all featured his face.

God, she felt like leaping off her balcony without suiting up first.

Steeling her resolve, Marinette pushed herself up off the floor, approaching her wall like a man walking to the guillotine. 

Quick and painless.

That was how she did it.

One by one, the pictures came off her wall, tacky residue on the pink paint the only indication that they'd ever been there at all.

She stacked them with care, lining up the edges neatly and making sure not one was out of place. Gazing down at the top photo, her favorite, the one of Adrien leaping into the air with a smile on his face, she took a deep breath-

-and threw the whole pile into her garbage can.

“Marinette!”

She shook her head, feeling tears forming in her eyes. Her butt hit the floor as she curled in on herself, wrapping her arms around her legs. Tikki pulled on a pigtail, trying desperately to get her to raise her head.

But Marinette continued to sniffle into her knees, letting the tears form wet patches on her capris.

It was time to let go of the boy she thought she knew. The mild mannered alter ego she hadn't realized she'd been looking at the entire time. It wasn't the real him.

And that wasn't fair.

Not to him, not to her.

He was Chat Noir, just as she was Ladybug. The titles were just something they could hide behind, something that allowed them the freedom they didn't have in their personal lives.

 _Perfect robot boy_ , he'd said. No wonder Chat was so over the top, if _Adrien_ was the true mask.

Tikki rubbed tiny circles into Marinette's shoulder, making little shushing sounds.

“You don't have to go with him tomorrow, you know,” the kwami suggested quietly.

Marinette jerked, head snapping up to look incredulously at Tikki. “Of course I do!” she was sure she looked a real mess; pigtails askew from Tikki tugging on them, the back all frizzed up from lying on the floor, and the smeared mascara tear tracks drying stickily on her cheeks. The picture of composed.

No wonder Tikki backed away, she probably looked terrifying. Marinette slumped, reaching up to undo a hairtie. “Tikki, he looked so happy. I can't cancel,” the elastic was knotted in her hair. Wincing, she tried to yank it out until Tikki pushed away her hand.

Gently untangling the snarls, Tikki dropped the hairtie into Marinette's palm, starting on the other pigtail. Marinette sighed.

Tikki, who was nearly as old as time itself, was the best listening ear she'd ever had. The kwami probably had much more interesting things to talk about with previous Ladybugs, and here was Marinette getting herself all upset over a boy.

“Does this happen every time?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Tikki stroked her hair, smoothing down the frizz. She handed the hairtie to Marinette, and came to perch on her knees, right in front of her nose.

“Not always,” she said, patting Marinette's knee. “Sometimes they choose not to reveal themselves, sometimes they work out better as friends than lovers,” the kwami gave her a sly smile. “Sometimes they get married.”

Marinette felt the blush rushing to her cheeks as Tikki giggled. She let her arms fall, unwrapping herself from the tight ball she'd been huddled in for too long. She felt her spine pop as she stretched, leaning back against the leg of her desk. 

“Which one do you think we’ll be?”

Tikki gave her a smile that wasn't so much pleasant as it was ancient. “That's up to you,” she replied. “In the meantime,” The little red kwami gripped the edge of the trashcan under Marinette's desk and pulled, knocking it onto its side. The pile of Adrien’s ads slid out onto the floor in front of her feet and Marinette looked at her, baffled. “It's okay not to let go all at once.” Tikki picked up the topmost photo, holding it in front of her face.

“You can still love Adrien. But you have to love the Chat Noir side of him, too.”

Taking the glossy photo from her kwami, Marinette ran her fingers over Adrien's smiling face. Brows furrowing, she shuffled through the pictures. Each one held a vacant smile, and if she hadn’t discovered that she knew him better than she thought she ever would, Marinette wouldn’t have noticed the difference. 

It had never occurred to her how faked his expression was, how it never reached his eyes. 

She thought of ridiculous grins and flirty looks and _perfect robot boy_ and the support beams of the Eiffel Tower at sunset. 

Of _I only take orders from you_ and _my lady,_ and racing across rooftops to see who could get to the Arc de Triomphe first, laughing as he slipped and slid and pole-vaulted ahead of her.

Of flowers and spinning and how _right_ his lips felt against her own.

“I think,” she murmured “that maybe I already do.”


End file.
